4 kegs of California Common

Johnny was a whirlwind of kegging today - four kegs of California Common, a steam beer, which can't be called a steam beer thanks to Anchor Brewing. Steam beers, historically from California's west coast, are brewed with lager yeasts, but fermented without refrigeration. Steam beers probably originated in the Gold Rush through the inelegance of necessity, but resulted in unexpected delectibility. Though they claim no connection to the original steam beer process, Anchor Brewing trademarked the term "steam beer" in 1981, rendering the rest of us unable to use it.

While researching California Common, steam beer etc, I came across the Beer Judge Certification Program style guidelines, a matrix of ABV%, color and chemical breakdown, Johnny said "What I am trying to do is make something that's good, in and of itself." We're less into the statistics of style and more into just making beer that tastes good.

Van Houten Brewing Co., Inc.

So, while the brewing and recipe refining continues, we got a bit tangled up in finding a place to brew and filing the incorporation papers. We are of course trying to avoid renting full warehouse space and are interested in contract breweries and restaurants. We thought there might be a chance to do Phase 1 brewing in our garage workspace but the differing city and county regulations mean we are in search of the next option. We're pretty excited to pair up with a few local restaurants and brew for them, but we'll need to be a legal entity to approach anyone. So - we found ourselves a super cool lawyer to help move along the process and we are deciding to get registered!!!! After some research, we've decided to go with an "S" Corp formation - we get the tax and liability protection without the added complication. LLCs seem to make more sense with more parties involved, but both accomplish the same goals.

We're a one horse show with plans to stay that way - so we prefer to keep it simple and like the "S" Corp. Maybe we'll add some sideshows or paint the pony eventually, but we'll never offer it to shareholders. We'll keep our beer horse show close to our hearts.

Most of our colleagues are LLCs, but Kern River Brewing Company is an "S" Corp too, so it seems we are not alone :)

Van Houten Brewing Co., Inc. here we come.

Hops in the Garden

Now that we finally have access to some dirt after a long hiatus in Amsterdam and San Francisco, we are SO pleased to havea garden, which of course includes hops. We got Cascade and Hallertauer rhizomes from the Thyme Garden Herb Company. Johnny's dad, Tom, has grown Cascade and a few other varieties with great success down south of us in Morgan Hill. He had pretty limited growth the first year while the root systems got established followed by superb growth subsequent years. We'll hope that's the same case for us....



Let's just say that the Cascade hops are thriving, even under the plum trees that have turned their open sun into dappled light.

The leaves are impressively large.










Hallertauer - not so much.....










At this point, even as novelty hops, we love them.

Changes at Anderson Valley Brewing

Like we mentioned before, nano is the new micro.... and nanobrewers are popping up to fill the void left as microbreweries go big.

As many of us know, Anderson Valley Brewing was just sold - and we wish all of them the best. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the new owner, Trey White has said that the only thing that's going to change is "the marketing end of things." Given his experience in marketing and distribution at United States Beverage, this makes sense. It will be interesting to see what changes occur in the coming months and years. Hard not to somehow feel that the end of an founder-run microbrewery is the end of an era. Ken Allen certainly gave it a good run and we wish him all the best.

We wish all our beer comrades all the best and as we watch micro move towards mega, we feel affirmed in our commitment to the taste of small batch beer and hope that you do too.

Brewing & Beaurocracy

It is perhaps not the most amazing time in the economy to begin a new business, but people seem to be drinking beer fairly steadily, and the time is right to take the leap into founding an honest to god nanobrewery.

So as Johnny as been perfecting his Northern English Ale on the 10 gallon brew structure from More Beer, my job is to begin the journey through town and state bureaucracy, business plans, and lawyers as we get begin to go for it.

One of many first steps is sussing out a place to brew. Since (according to TTB) it is legal to brew 200 gallons as a homebrewer in a 2 person household, originally, we thought we'd try to do the start-up phase out of our garage, or out of Tom's garage where they currently brew in Morgan Hill. So I started with the Morgan Hill Planning Department. Since we already operate a home based consulting business, I am familiar with the Town of San Anselmo's home business regulations, which ended up being quite different.

Interesting civic planning lesson #1: Home business regulations are made at the city level.

On one hand this makes sense, but it's also bizarre. In San Anselmo, you can NOT use your garage but you CAN have 1 employee. So that's out. In Morgan Hill you CAN use your garage but you can NOT have anyone other than the owner at work. So that's out too. And to be quite honest, the deeper I get into the calculations it seems worth it to find our home in a local warehouse and go for it.

Next step.... Craigslist. and figuring out the clusterf*$! of ABC, TTB, BOE, EHS etc. to make sure anywhere we rent is actually an approvable brewing space. I might add "Bureaucratic Ninja" to my job title...